Kaikua'ana
by thefaultinoursociety
Summary: In which McGarrett uncovers information that make him question his past, present, and future with the Hawaii Five-0 Task Force in the midst of a gruesome and electrifying case.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Steve paced in front of the door to his office.

"Commander McGarrett?" inquired Max nervously as he entered the Five-0 headquarters.

Steve looked up and sighed with relief. "Do you have the results?" He raised his eyebrows in nervous anticipation.

"Right here," he said, passing Steve an envelope from the lab, inscribed with his name.

"Did you look? D-Do you know?" stammered McGarrett as his eyes flicked across the room, finally settling on the parcel he now held in his brawny, rugged hands. He fought to uphold an air of confidence in this situation that had the power to challenge what he believed about both his own mother and Wo Fat.

"No," stated Max; concern washed over his face.

"Thank you," Steve turned and traipsed directly into his office, where he set the envelope on the short mahogany coffee table and collapsed into a chair beside it. He pursed his lips, clasped his hands, and glared at the lab report concealed in its blanched wrapping.

Mustering every bit of audacity he could, he snatched it from the table and let out an exasperated sigh as he tore at the seal.

SIBLING DNA TESTING RESULTS: 50% POSITIVE.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't finish reading the lab report revealing that he was indeed the half-brother of the infamous, malevolent criminal Wo Fat, whom his mother Doris so fervently fought to protect.

"_You killed your stepfather?! MY father? Your mother's husband?!" _ He slammed his fist into the adjacent cinderblock wall and sunk to the floor, hands gripping his head.

Immediately the glass doors swung open. Danny.

"Steve, you better take a look at this."


	2. Chapter 2

_"Mom, I told you, I can't pick up Noah from school. I'm at work. I don't get off for another two hours," I said as I stacked boxes in the storeroom. I held my cell phone away from my ear so I didn't have to listen to my mother chewing me out at full volume. I didn't like working at the Git-n-Go gas station, but I needed to keep my job, and that meant not skipping out on shifts even when my family needed me. I was done listening to the nagging. "Bye." Click. I shoved my phone back into my pocket, hoping to avoid a lecture from Mr. Callahan, who threatened unemployment to anyone caught using their phone during a shift._

_ I heard a chime as the door in the front of the station opened up._

_ "Can I help you?" I heard Mr. Callahan ask from behind the counter._

_ It was that fast._

_ Before I knew what was going on, I heard the deafening plug of a gunshot. My eyes opened wide with terror and darted around the room, looking for something - anything - that I could use to defend myself, but I could find nothing of use. Paralyzed, I stood in the storeroom as I heard someone rummaging around in the front of the store, then a low, grisly grunt and footsteps gradually getting closer. Too close._

_ Summoning every ounce of nerve I contained, I slowly looked up. An ominous dark figure had instantaneously appeared in the doorframe. Due to the ski mask covering his face, the only feature of this intruder I could make out was a Japanese-style tattoo; that was the last glimpse of him I managed before he grabbed me by the arm and vehemently wrapped a blindfold around my head._

_ The blunt muzzle of a handgun nudged me in the back of the head. _

_ "Walk."_

Detective Danny Williams turned on his heel and started for the tech board in the middle of the Five-0 task force headquarters, followed by Commander McGarrett. "What have we got? What is it this time?" They joined Kono and Chin Ho, who were already typing furiously on computers, organizing evidence.

"We've got what appears to be a hit on the owner of a gas station just outside the city," answered Kono. "But that's not all. He wasn't the only one at the station. Watch," she said, as she pressed play on the computer, and a glitchy black and white surveillance tape showed a stocky but diminutive masked man entering the station through its sliding glass doors. Within seconds, he drew a Beretta from the holder at his waist, aimed, and gunned down the man behind the register.

"No hesitation. Looks like he's been in the business for a while."

The victim slumped to the floor; a pool of blood emerged below him, his open eyes blank and vacant. The intruder wasted no time - he bent down, searching through unseeable items behind the counter and finally picking up a leather purse. Standing up straight, he examined it - alarm washed over his angular face for no longer than a second before he sauntered off to the back of the store and out of sight of the camera.

Moments later, he emerged from the back room, forcing in front of him a blindfolded, dazed girl, no older than 17, and prodding her forward with his handgun.

"Look at his arm," remarked Chin Ho. Barely visible was a dark tattoo of a dragon, winding around his forearm. They looked back to the screen.

The assassin clutched his mask with one hand and wrenched it off of his head. He looked directly into the camera with an air of defiance, his teeth clenched, as if to say, "I dare you. I dare you to contest me." His ghastly, hollow, sunken features bore deeply into the lens of the security camera.

The tape faded with a sputter.

"What - what was that? He just - He looked _straight _into the camera. Took off his mask and..." mused Danny.

Steve McGarrett looked up. "Maybe he wants us to find him."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"He wants to be found," echoed Danny. The company looked silently at each other for an incisive moment.

Compelled, McGarret said, "Well, if he insists. . . Chin, run facial recognition."

With just a few taps on the board's touch screen, Chin had the FBI-sanctioned program up and running, analyzing the specific structure of this enigmatic criminal and scanning for a match in the federal databases. In fewer than ten seconds, it came to a conclusion: No matches.

"No matches? There's got to be a match. Over 100,000 registered felons in that database and not one match?" Danny began pacing the floor.

"Don't get too anxious - your blood pressure, remember?" A grin crept across McGarrett's expression but was quickly stifled when Danny shot him a look. "This's happened before."

"Right. There are similar alternatives - other databases that we can search," added Chin.

"You seem to have forgotten that he's taken a hostage. Time is a luxury we don't have. We've got to get a lead," added Danny. "Kono, come with McGarrett and me. We'll scope out the station. Chin, do you think you can find the identity of our shooter?"

"I'm on it," and with that Chin began pounding furiously onto a keyboard while the others loaded their ammunition.

"Let's go."

Kono, Danny, and Steve hopped out of the silver Camaro and joined a team of HPD officers and forensic scientists around the entrance of the dilapidated gas station.

Kono, glancing around at its battered facade, approached the officers. "Has it been cleared?"

"Yeah. Vic's being examined as we speak."

"Thanks." The several Five-0 agents walked into the run-down building. Inside, convenience store-type shelving occupied almost all of the floorspace. Apart from the distinct smell of iron emanating from the blood-stained carpet behind the counter, it smelled of dust. Dust and grime, with a hint of pungent liquor. Whatever rays of light did show through the unwashed, grimy windows were filtered by advertisement posters. "Obviously this place wasn't well-taken care of. It looks like no one's even been in here for months. Max - What've you got?"

He looked up from his examination of the cadaver.

"Not much. About 45, with a close-range gunshot wound to the forehead by a silenced handgun. But get this - no bullet. See?" Max gestured to the corpse's temple. "Entrance wound, but no exit wound, and nothing to be found inside his skull, either."

"No bullet." Steve McGarrett inched closer to the subject of the inspection. "What if. . . What if it's because the bullet would identify the shooter? The Yakuza. The entire organization uses a uniform gold bullet. After the tape cut out, the shooter removed the bullet hoping to disguise himself, obviously unsuccessfully."

"That would explain the lack of data in the system. All Yakuza members are classically trained in homicide, but not all of them have actually committed a felony," remarked Kono genially. "I'll inform Chin Ho." She retreated to the semi-soundless front of the store and dialed while Max resumed his analysis.

"We are running data right now and should have a full report within a few hours. One last thing you should see while you're here." He traversed to the cash register and unlatched its drawer.

"15K. Left here untouched."


End file.
